WSOP 2006 Day 4

I get back to my room about 2AM Friday night, exhausted from another long day of poker, but there are no more days off, and I need to be in my seat at the Rio and ready to play at noon on Saturday. I wake at 9AM, head down to catch the Poker Stars shuttle around 10:30, and see several people in Poker Stars shirts standing in the taxi line. Seems Stars is no longer running the shuttle, so I split a cab with them to the Rio and we all head down to the hospitality suite for coffee and muffins. We are talking idly when a bearded journalist interrupts us to introduce himself, “Hi, my name is Jim McManus, and I’m covering the World Series for the LA Times. I’m writing a piece on bluffing in poker and bluffing in the Middle East, and I was wondering if any of you could share some stories about big bluffs you’ve been involved in so far in this tournament.”

Jim McManus? I’m a big fan. In 2000, Jim was a poker enthusiast teaching creative writing at the Art Institute of Chicago. He got an assignment with Harper’s to write a story about women at the World Series of Poker and flew out to Las Vegas to cover the event, but ended up spending his entire advance trying to win a seat in the tournament, which he eventually did. He went on to make the final table, win $247,760 (many fewer players competed in 2000- this year the top 12 competitors will all be millionaires), and chronicle the entire trip in a best-selling book called “Positively Fifth Street” (‘fifth street’ is another name for ‘the river’, the final card dealt in Texas Hold ‘Em). It’s a great read, especially for poker players, and I’ve been very consciously mimicing his style in these updates. In fact, someone suggested that I publish them under the title “Positively Better Than That McManus Book”. Unfortunately Jim doesn’t have time to talk, but he leaves his e-mail address with all of us and nearly begs us to send him detailed accounts of our experiences with bluffing.

That’s pretty exciting, but right now I need to figure out my strategy for the day. The bad news is that the blinds start at 2000/4000 with a 400 ante, meaning that my stack of 66,500 will last only about 54 hands unless I make a move. I am getting to the point where I can no longer afford to play a pot for anything less than my entire stack, because once I commit any meaningful number of chips to the pot, it will be too large for me to give up on. But there is some good news, too. First, I have enough chips that I can be a little choosy about when I will commit them all, and second, I have so much experience playing fast-action online tournaments that I pretty much know what I am doing with a stack of this size.

This is probably a good time to explain a rift in poker culture that I’ve been hinting at for a while now. Ever since Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 Main Event (not 2004, as I mistakenly reported earlier), there has been an explosion of poker playing on the internet, and each year more and more people like me, who can count on one hand the number of times they have played live poker at a casino, pony up a few hundred dollars for a shot at poker’s most coveted title. Decades ago, the quintessential professional poker players had names like Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim. They would leave home for days at a time, driving across Texas to play in every big (illegal) game there was. They couldn’t afford to be selective about the players with whom they played or the games they were playing. Making a living at poker required a willingness to play any variant of the game at any stakes and to endure long road trips, armed robbery, and sporadic bankruptcy.

Nowadays, there are thousands of professional or semi-professional players on the internet. Most are young, in college or recently graduated, but some are still in high school and others have forsaken college altogether. They can find a game of virtually any form of poker at almost any stakes (from $.01/.02, with a minimum buy-in of $.20, to $200/$400, with a minimum buyin of $4000) whenever they want to play. For instance, I focus on playing No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments, and whether I want to play a $10 tournament or a $100 tournament, I can find one starting somewhere on the internet in the next 5 minutes. These internet pros, some of whom have up to 16 tables open at once on four big-screen, high resolution computer monitors, can play in a year or two as many hands of poker as a Texas road gambler might have played in his entire life.

Although some people who have made a living for decades playing live poker now play on the internet and some internet stars have made a big splash on the live poker scene, a gulf continues to exist between these two cultures. But at the main event of the World Series of Poker, our worlds collide.

In any poker tournament, the size of the blinds and antes dictates how aggressively competitors must play. Generally, deeper stacks require more skill, as there are more decisions to be made. At the world series, the size of the blinds increases every two hours, guaranteeing a lot of room to maneuver in the early stages and ensuring that the tournament lasts for two weeks. In a typical online tournament, the blinds increase every 10-15 minutes, so that only the largest tournaments last more than a few hours. Internet players like myself, accustomed to these rapidly increasing blinds, have evolved a very aggressive style of play. We raise, re-raise, and move all-in very aggressively, knowing that we cannot afford to pass up even small edges and that if we happen to get unlucky, there is always another tournament starting any minute.

Those accustomed to live play tend to be more cautious and conservative. There is only one WSOP main event every year, so they tend to guard their ‘tournament life’ carefully, reluctant to risk it even when they believe they have a small edge. You may have noticed that whenever I described an older player at my table, I almost invariably described him as a ‘tight’ or ‘conservative’ player who, in my opinion, folded too often and didn’t raise nearly enough. These players have their own stereotypes of online players, who are sometimes derogatorily referred to as “internet donkeys”:

1) We are too loose and aggressive, bluffing too often and calling raises with hands that more conservative players consider garbage. In most internet tournaments, it is rarely correct to fold if you have the third, fourth, or even fifth best possible hand. In deep-stacked tournaments like the World Series, there are more occasions where a good player can correctly fold even the second best possible hand.

2) We lack class. We are likely to cheer or celebrate obnoxiously when we win a big pot, even if we won it through luck rather than skillful play. I’ve been careful to avoid doing this, but I’ve seen plenty of it.

3) We aren’t familiar with the ethics and rules of live play. Accustomed to seeing our cards as soon as they are dealt, we sometimes look at them before it is our turn to act and inadvertently broadcast our intentions, affecting the decisions of those acting before us. We put chips into the pot without verbally announcing our intentions, meaning we are sometimes forced to call when we meant to raise or raise when we meant to call (a mistake I’ve made more than once). We ‘slowroll’, meaning that even if we expect we have the best hand, we tend to wait for our opponents to show their cards because this is information we are accustomed to having, even though this is considered rude in live play (I did do this intentionally once, for the purpose of further frustrating an already frustrated player).

In short, internet players tend to overplay their medium-strength hands and otherwise fail to adapt to the deeper structure of large buy-in live tournaments like the WSOP. Up until now, that has been a handicap, but at this stage of the tournament the blinds and antes have reached a stage that really is comparable to the later stages of an internet tournament, and now it is time for us internet donkies to shine. There is a mathematically correct strategy when your only option is to fold or raise all-in, and it relates to the number of players left to act behind you, the likelihood of each calling you, the size of the pot, and the number of chips you have remaining. Although I don’t have the math down cold, I have a much better feel for it than the average live player, and I expect to use that to my advantage.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time describing my tables today, because I wasn’t at either one for too long. My first table was a great one for me: the average stack size was about half the average for the tournament as a whole, which means it will be easier for me to get away with moving all in to pick up the blinds and antes without being called. The most colorful character at the table is AJ Shulman, the wife of Cardplayer magazine founder Barry Shulman and co-owner of the magazine. She’s been around the world of cards for a long time and seems to know what she is doing, but she is even shorter than I am, so she is not much of a threat to me. She’s a vivacious woman, probably in her 50’s, loud and talkative but also friendly and mostly good-humored, except for when she is unhappy about how some detail of how the tournament is being run.She is sitting to the immediate left of the dealer, with whom we are talking before the tournament director gives the order to “shuffle up and deal”. I’ve heard a lot of complaints from the dealers about how Harrah’s has been treating them, both with regard to their pay (Harrah’s claimed at one point that staff would bet getting 3% of the prize pool, but it sounds like the actual number is 1.5%), their accomodations (many have traveled from casinos around the country to deal this event, and have had to handle travel and lodging expenses out of pocket), their training, and the respect they are generally afforded by management. Apparently, they are also not allowed to have any food or drink while they are at the table or even during their breaks. We end up devising a plan whereby I order a coffee from the cocktail waitress and pass it to AJ, who places it on the floor next to her so that the dealer can surreptitiously sip on it.Unfortunately, AJ is not destined to be with us for long. There is a raise and a re-raise in front of her, and she shouts, “Come on Aces, show me Aces!”, shuffles her two cards a few times, taps them, blows on them, and finally peeks at them. “All in” she announces. Both players call, and the flop comes out Ace-Queen-Four. One player bets, the other folds, and now that it is heads up, AJ and the other player can turn over their cards. AJ reveals a pair of Kings, the second-best hand she could have hoped for. Her opponent was dealt a pair of Queens, way behind AJ before the flop but now way ahead with three-of-a-kind. AJ has only a 5% chance of improving, and she does not, meaning that she has been eliminated in a most unlucky way. I’ve seen players handle poor fortune in a wide variety of ways, from cursing their luck to cursing their own play to berating the play of their opponents to calmly saying “nice hand” and tapping the table, but AJ’s response was unique. She shakes the hand of everyone at the table, then sticks her tongue out at the player who eliminted her and blows a very genuine raspberry (I was sitting next to him and could see the mist) before wishing everyone good luck.

A few hands later, I am dealt the coveted pair of Aces. It is tempting to make a small raise and try to invite action, but I decide to play it like I would any other hand and just move all in. This may actually be perceived as weakness by someone who understands good late-game tournament strategy, and regardless, if everyone folds, I can show the hand and hopefully earn some respect for future all-in steals I have to make. Sure enough, everyone folds, and I show my Aces to the table. A few hands later, I re-raise all-in with Ace-Jack over someone’s raise and he says, “Aces again?” before folding, so it seems like my plan worked.

I don’t get a lot of mileage out of this play, though, because not long after, our entire table gets broken down and we are scattered across the room. I am moved to a new table with Jason (very strong 21-year old player mentioned in an earlier e-mail) who now has about 700,000 chips, another high stakes player I played with for a while on Day 2, and a few more very strong players with mountains of chips in front of them. The blinds and antes quickly eat away at my stack and before long I am down to just 50,000 chips. I haven’t had any good stealing opportunities, and have been waiting very patiently, maybe too patiently. It hasn’t been completely in vain, because in the time I have waited players have been dropping like flies and I have been slowly climbing the pay scale, now having about $30,000 wrapped up. Still, while I know that the correct strategy is to focus on accumulating chips and not focusing on these small increases in prize money, a few thousands dollars is really not small to me and I am a little more inclined towards patience than I would be if the stakes weren’t so high.

In one moment of particularly poor judgment, I am in the big blind, forced to put up nearly 10% of my stack blind, and five players just call the blinds, meaning that the size of the pot is now very nearly the size of my stack. The correct play here is to go all in and hopefully get it heads up with just one player and a giant overlay from all of the dead money in the pot, and I am ready to do this, but then I look at my cards and see Ace-Deuce. Anyone who calls me will probably have either a pair or a better Ace, meaning that I would actually be in better shape with a hand like Ten-Nine, which would at least give me two live cards. I chicken out, check, and fold to a bet. I asked Jason about this hand later, and he said I shouldn’t even have looked at my hand, but just gone all in.

My next time in the big blind, six players fold before someone finally raises. I have a pair of 5’s, and figure this is the best chance I am going to get. “All in,” I announce, and the raiser smirks, realizing he is priced in to call me with whatever garbage he was trying to steal with. He turns over a 9 and and a 6 is pleasantly surprised to see that with two overcards to my pair, he is nearly 50% to win the pot. My hand holds up, though, and I get a much needed double up. This marks the first time the entire tournament that I could have been eliminated, being all in against a player who had more chips than I did.

I’m sitting almost immediately behind Humberto Brenes, a Costa Rican pro famous (or notorious, depending on who you ask) for his over-the-top antics. Needless to say, the cameras love him. He is using a toy shark to protect his cards (it is a player’s obligation to be sure the dealer does not accidentally muck his hand and that his cards do not become confused with anyone else’s, so most put something on top of their cards to protect them) and explaining to his table that it is not he but his friend the shark (also named Humberto) making all of the decisions at the table. Any time he calls someone’s all in, he stands up and shouts “Humberto huuuuuuungry! Humberto huuuuuuuuuuuungry!” repeatedly, and sometimes the shark travels across the table to devour and retrieve the chips he has won. These days, being a pro is as much about marketing as it as about playing poker.

I go into the break with over 100,000 chips, still not a lot of breathing room but a big improvement over the 70,000 I started with. I run into Rizen and learn that he is up over 500,000. As much of a minefield as these huge tournaments are, it is very reassuring to see great players doing well, especially people as nice and deserving as Eric (his real name). He tells me some stories about how bad the play is at his table, and I am extremely jealous, because mine is tough tough tough.

Level ? (lost count), blinds 2500/5000 with a 500 ante. Even with 100,000 chips, I am still in desperation mode, able to afford less than ten times around the table. I keep my head above the water with some steals and re-steals, get dealt Kings once but just take the blinds (which is not trivial, at this stage), and then finally see a big starting hand in Ace-King. There is a raise in front of me, and I re-raise all in. My blood runs cold, however, when Jason looks down at his cards and announces “all in”. He’s seen a raise and a re-raise in front of him, and is still willing to go all in? Thankfully, he turns over Ace-King as well and we chop the pot. Phew, that could have been bad.

Then I finally run into a good spot. Jason opens from first position for 15,000 and the high stakes kid calls him. I have nearly 130,000 chips at this point and am dealt a pair of Aces. Again, I am tempted to make a smaller raise, but these are two very smart players and both seem to have some kind of hand to raise from first position and to call a first position raise. I’ve been going all in a lot, so a smaller raise might around suspicion. Besides, while I’d badly like to double up again, taking down the 50,000 chips currently in the pot would not be a bad result either. I announce “all in” and they both fold, taking me up to 180,000 chips.

What happens next is perhaps the most painful thing I have ever witnessed in my time playing poker. Jason raises to 15,000, and another player with a huge stack re-raises to 75,000 from the small blind. Jason announces “All in” for 400,000 more and the other player calls fairly quickly. Jason turns over a pair of Aces, the best possible hand, and the other guy has Ace-King of spades. There are nearly one million chips in the pot, making this probably the largest pot played so far in this tournament. These chips represent the combined fortunes of 100 players who entered this tournament but have not survived this far. Jason is an 87.23% favorite to win, and winning would likely give him more chips than any of the roughly 300 players who remain.

It is hard to convert tournament chips into an exact dollar figure for a player’s equity at a particular moment in the tournament. Before play began, everyone had paid $10,000 and received 10,000 chips. However, Harrah’s took a cut of the prize pool for their profits and to pay the staff, so even at that point there was not a 1:1 conversion. Furthermore, one must account for the nebulous skill factor that makes chips worth more in the hands of a good player than in the hands of a bad player. Then there is payout structure of the tournament. At the moment when the bubble burst and fewer than 873 players remained, a player with just a single black chip, worth 100 in tournament units, would nonetheless be entitled to $14,500 in real money. Now that some portion of the prize pool has been paid out but the same number of chips remain in play, each chips is worth proportionately less than it was at the start of the tournament.

Still, a conservative estimate would be that the 1,000,000 chips in this pot represent at least $250,000 in real money equity, and in the hands of a skilled player like Jason, they could easily be worth $500,000 or more. His opponent, previously one of the larger stacks in the tournament, now faces an 83% chance of being eliminated in one fell swoop. ESPN camera crews rush over to record the action The dealer raps the table, “burns” the top card from the deck, and flips over the three flop cards: Jacks of spades, 9 of hearts, 4 of diamonds. It’s a very safe flop for Jason, improving his odds of winning the pot to 93.64%. The only way he can lose now is if his opponent catches two perfect cards in a row: two spades to make a flush, a queen and a ten to make a straight, or two of the last three kings in the deck to make three of a kind.I grimace and watch Jason do the same as the the dealer reveals the turn card: a Queen of spades. This is one of the worst cards in the deck for him, instantly giving his opponent 13 ways to win on the river, either with one of four tens to complete a straight or one of nine spades to complete a flush. But still, Jason is a 72.73% favorite to win.

The dealer raps the table one last time, burns a card, and reveals the river, which will likely be burned in Jason’s mind for the rest of his life: a 6 of spades, giving his opponent a flush. “Oh God,” I say, literally feeling sick in my stomach. The table explodes. Jason’s opponent, a long-haired, goateed twenty-something from Dallas, leaps out of his chair and claps his hands. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Jason’s face is a mile long, but he is remarkably calm, just staring at the felt and muttering, “So sick.”

Finally, he asks the dealer, “How much is it?” He has more than his opponent, so he will get to keep nearly 300,000 chips, still in better shape than I am and about average for the tournament. The dealer counts down Dallas’ stack and then tells Jason he needs to cough up about 430,000 more chips. Jason’s chips are stacked in a pyramid in front of him, with pillars of yellow chips, worth 1000 each, 50 deep. Slowly, he breaks off tower after tower of yellows, several times more chips than I have ever had in front of me in this tournament, and shoves them across the table to his opponent.

The rest of this level goes by in a blur and soon we are on break again. My deal with Poker Stars guaranteed me a hotel room through the night of Friday, August 4th, and when I was still in the tournament at the end of the day Friday, it was automatically extended through Friday the 11th. However, I already have a plane ticket for 11PM tonight, and frankly am getting sick of Vegas, so my plan was to see how things go today before deciding to cancel the flight. It’s now 4PM and I’m still in the tournament, so I start calling people to find someone near a computer who can cancel my flight for me. My girlfriend is at the beach, my brother is at work, my friend is at the grocery store, finally I reach my mother and walk her through the process of cancelling the flight. By the time I pay cancellation fees to America West and Orbitz, I’ve lost nearly all the money I spent on the flight, but that’s trivial compared to the amount of money I’ve locked up already (nearly $40,000). I check in again with Rizen, now up to 600,000 chips, tell him of Jason’s misfortune, grab a granola bar from the hospitality suite (still haven’t had lunch), and head back to my table.

Level ?, blinds 3000/6000 with a 1000 ante.

Monstrous. The pot is now 18,000 chips before cards are dealt, meaning that my 180,000 chips is still good for barely 10 times around the table. I need to pick up some good cards soon.

With less than a minute to go before cards are dealt, I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up and see Annie Duke. She nods at my stack. “Looks you are doing well. Doubled up?”

“Yeah. Better. You?”

“About 750,000.”

“Wow, good luck.”

“You, too.” She heads back to her table, having solidified her reputation with me as a class act, no matter what I’ve heard.

Just a few hands into the level I am dealt a pair of Queens, the third best possible starting hand. High stakes kid raises to 17,000 from early position, and I re-raise to 60,000, ready to get it all in against this aggressive player if necessary. But then someone behind me announces “All in”, everyone folds, and I have a decision to make. I have put 60,000 chips into this pot and have about 120,000 left. There are now 275,000 chips in the pot, but it will cost me everything I have if I want a chance at winning them. Folding now will leave me in desperation mode again, and I am sick of being there. I really feel like I am at my best when playing a big stack. I know how to fold and wait for opportunities to move all in and steal the blinds, but I don’t like having to do it, and I don’t relish spending the rest of the day in this mode. We’re still nowhere the big payout jumps that will start occurring when we get below 80 players remaining. I have one of the best hands in poker and am getting 2.5:1 on my money.

But, my opponent has re-re-raised all in. That’s an awfully strong play to make. If he has Aces or Kings then I’m a 4:1 dog. But if he has a pair of Jacks, I’m a 4:1 favorite. If he has Ace-King, I’m a little better than 50/50. I have no idea if he could have those hands. Against the average internet player, I’d call this in a heartbeat and not think twice about it, but this is Day 4 of the World Series of Poker. I’ve only been playing with this guy a few hours and I honestly don’t know whether he could do this with AK or JJ.

I’m also exhausted. I played poker for 10 hours yesterday, got about 6 hours of sleep, and have been playing for 4 hours this morning. I’ve been away from home, away from my apartment and my bed and my girlfriend and my kitchen and my regular life, for 10 days. I started today with a mindset of win big or go home.

“I call,” I announce, turning over my pair of Queens. My opponent turns over the pair of Aces that I knew he had all along. I’m an internet donkey at heart.

And so I am eliminated in 279th place, twenty minutes after cancelling my flight. I shake hands with everyone at the table and wish them well. I put my hand on Jason’s shoulder and tell him, “You can recover.” I grab my bag and start to leave the table, but the dealer reminds me that I need to wait for someone to escort me to the cashier’s cage where I’ll get my prize. We walk past Annie Duke, and I tap her on the shoulder. “It was a pleasure,” I tell her. “Good luck to you.”

She looks up at the floor man standing next to me and realizes what has happened. “Hey, you too,” she tells me. “Congratulations. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but congratulations.”Actually, it does. This is a huge score for me, better than I ever expected to do, and as well as I think anyone could expect to do in a tournament like this. There are still a few big name pros left: Daniel Negreanu, Annie Duke, Allen Cunningham, Humberto Brenes; and a few internet superstars looking to make a name for themselves in the world of live play: Eric Lynch (“Rizen”), Jason Strasser (“Strassa2” or “Kamikaze”) and Prahlad Friedman (“Mahatma”). But I have outlasted many of the biggest names in poker: Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Dan Harrington, Johnny Chan, and the legendary Doyle Brunson, winner of back to back World Series titles in the 1970’s and author of the Bible of poker.

I fill out some paperwork, including tax forms (I cringe to think of the bite they will be taking out of my prize), and tell the cashier I would prefer a check over casino chips or cash. I’m surprised and disappointed when no one asks me if I want to leave a tip for the dealers, and worse, that when I ask about how to go about doing this, the woman tells me, “I don’t know.” Tipping dealers is standard practice at a casino, and my understanding is that it is customary after winning a tournament prize as well. I asked one of my favorite dealers about the matter discretely, and he said that 1% would be a good amount, maybe a little less if I won a really big prize (in the context of this tournament, $40K is not a really big prize). I ask the woman if she can find out what I need to do to leave a tip, and she returns to tell me that I can leave cash with her. Well, I don’t have $400 in cash on me, so I have to pay exorbitant casino ATM fees to withdraw the money for a tip.

This is really, really shameful. I understand, though don’t respect, the fact that Harrah’s doesn’t feel they need to provide competitive pay and accomodations for dealers at the WSOP. Some good dealers will continue to deal it anyway, just to have the honor of doing so, and from Harrah’s perspective a green dealer straight out of training is worth nearly as much as someone with twenty years’ experience. Most players will continue to play the event because it is the World Series, even if the quality of the dealing deteriorates. So Harrah’s really doesn’t have much economic incentive to provide compensation that will attract world class dealers to a world class tournament.

But why make it so difficult for players to leave tips? I had at least 50 different dealers during my four days of play, and felt that all but 2 provided exceptional, professional, and friendly service. I think they deserve tips above and beyond the cut of the prize pool they are getting, and I know that it is in the interest of players to be sure that good dealers feel it is worth their time to keep dealing the World Series.

Well, that concludes my World Series adventure. I guess the last question that may be on your minds is, “What are you going to do with all that money?” I’ve already paid off most of my student loans with poker winnings, and this is more than enough to finish those off. I’ve always enjoyed playing poker, but since I’ve been relying on it for supplemental income, it’s started to feel like a job and a chore sometimes. I’m actually looking forward to taking some time off from poker, now that I’ve got a little monetary cushion, and focusing on other priorities to which I haven’t always devoted as much attention as I would have liked. As many of you know, I’ve spent the last six years both working and volunteering with various urban debate leagues around the country and now run a non-profit organization in Boston that starts debate programs at public high schools and runs debate tournaments. I want to devote more time to the Boston Debate League and ensure that it remains viable. Having a little money will also make it easier for me to volunteer for friends who run other leagues in places like Chicago, LA, and Providence. In the past I’ve asked them to cover my costs whenever I’ve come to their cities to work with their leagues, but that won’t be necessary now.

Also, between poker, my paid work, my volunteer work, and my girlfriend’s busy work schedule, I haven’t had as much quality time with her as I would like. She’ll still be busy working on the MA gubernatorial campaign through November, but I’ve been promising her a vacation for a while now so I’m looking forward to planning a getaway with her to celebrate my victory and hopefully hers as well.

After talking with a friend in LA last month, I realized that I need to start thinking more seriously about saving and investing as well. Poker is probably at the height of its popularity right now, meaning that the games are as profitabe as they are going to get, and there is legislation pending in Congress that would prohibit Americans from playing on the internet. I want to make sure I’ve got enough money saved up that I’ll be able to enjoy the financial freedom that poker has afforded me these last two years even when I’m no longer able to derive as much income from it as I do now.

Some people have asked whether I’m going to re-invest this money in poker. Honestly, I don’t think there’s much need to do that. I have enough money in my poker bankroll already to allow me to play at the stakes I want to be playing right now, and while I’d like to play a few more live tournaments and try to qualify for the WSOP again next year, I think I can pretty much do that with the money I already have set aside for poker.

So once again, thanks to everyone who has been following along and wishing me well. ESPN is going to be dedicating probably ten one-hour segments to coverage of the WSOP, and I will definitely be in one and possibly as many as three of them. They won’t be airing for at least a few weeks, but I’ll be sure to let you know when they will be on.